Wednesday, October 12, 2011

NYC 'Subway Surfer' Creates Panic on Train

New York City authorities are on the lookout for a so-called "subway surfer' who hooked onto the outside of a J-train and, at first, panicked, then captivated passengers who recorded the dangerous stunt on their phone-cams.

The nearly four-minute exploit went viral and now the unnamed 'surfer' has become an Internet sensation and the MTA is not pleased.

The MTA would rather this video did not reach YouTube, since the young man is clinging to the outside of the train's door, but it's too late.

At first, passengers started screaming and thought the guy was in trouble but, after he smiled and put a finger to his lips-- as to shhh the riders-- they knew it was just another jackass stunt.

Train surfing is nothing new to New York City or anywhere else in the world. The Internet is filled with videos of these daredevils in Japan, India and Brazil-- but this guy did it passing within inches of the walls in the small confines of a subway tunnel.

In the past, the MTA has posted "Surf the Web-- Not the Train" signs in the subway stations. Now it looks like the two activities go hand-in-hand.

The New York City Transit Police Department has no firm statistics on how many people have been killed by subway surfing and considers it a crime. Since 2003, four men's deaths have been attributed to surfing the NYC subways.

"The agency was reluctant to do a lot of media about it because it just encourages foolish young people to do really dangerous things," Al O'Leary a former spokesperson for the NYC Transit Police told the New York Times about copycats. "NYC Transit's goal is to transport people safely, not just scrape them off the tracks."